Fashion Victim
by Surchester
Summary: Benson and Stabler go to the boonies to investigate a kiddie porn ring and find some hair-raising goings-on in the deep South
1. Fashion Victim

Fashion Victim  
  
A Law and Order: SVU Parody  
  
By: JH Surchester  
  
Chapter One  
  
It was a temperate, smooth-skied Sunday in this backwater precinct of Dead Twig, Georgia, a small rural community known for nothing but a snaky, tannic river that the town drunk wrote a song about a hundred years ago. The streets were quiet save for the blue-haired ladies and gents who navigated their shiny yachts along the main thoroughfare, decked out for church and then maybe a nice Sunday dinner afterward at the Dookie Diner.  
  
Ah, the Dookie. Best coffee in town. Even if it was the only coffee in town if a cop didn't care for the watered-down swill found at the many convenience stores that dotted the town. Benson and Stabler were parked in a window booth in the no-smoking section, each lost in private, distant worlds on this quiet day of rest.  
  
Olivia Benson perused the local paper, pausing on the arrests page. God, what was the world coming to. Most of the arrests were for either domestic abuse or failure to appear in court for DUI cases. What an exciting town.  
  
What got her to Dead Twig in the first place was this: She'd been busted for not coming in to work the day after her 40th birthday party, choosing instead to wait out her hangover beached on a stranger's dirty duvet on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Well, she also had had some charming company with whom to pass the time. Little miss Alicia Stabler.  
  
It'd been a tough week, that one, what with her breakup with ADA Alexandra Cabot being the water-cooler gossip of the precinct, and getting really fucking old, all in the same week. So she'd gotten a little tipsy and gone home with Elliot's niece. Jesus. A woman in a high stress job such as hers has to let off a little steam from time to time. But this time it didn't pay off. As punishment, Captain Cragen had sent her on a reconnaissance mission to this godforsaken hick town to suss out the possible nexus of a nationwide kiddie porn ring.  
  
Her partner, Elliot Stabler was just along for the ride. He absentmindedly twirled a stirrer in his cold coffee while he stared out the diner window at a freight train grinding in slow motion along the railroad tracks across the street. Hey, it was February. He could use some peachy southern Georgia sunshine in exchange for the butt end of New York City winter and all its ugliness. Frozen homeless people. Hell, frozen Elliot. Besides, his wife was being a bitch lately. The kids were getting on his nerves. Good to get away for a week.  
  
He stole a glance across the table at Olivia's chest, rising and falling under her signature cashmere V-neck and white t-shirt as she breathed slowly in concentration. It was natural for a man to look, right? Even if he had a snowball's chance in hell. 


	2. chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
Meanwhile, at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store a mere eighth of a mile away from the Dookie Diner, Ruby Jackson shuffled along the sidewalk under the supermarket's awning in a pair of filthy, light blue fuzzy bedroom slippers. She wore a shiny, paisley polyester housecoat in tasteful gold, black and beige tones. A stylish, bright blonde beehive wig topped off the look, standing out in contrast to her dark eyes and skin. A cigarette dangled from her slack, toothless mouth.  
  
As she shuffled, a buzzing sound ignited overhead. The Y in Wiggly, always a burr in the behind of the manager, was acting up again, flashing and dimming alternately before it spurted out a brief rain of high voltage electrical sparks onto Ruby's head before dying completely. The wig, made of highly flammable man-made materials, burst into flames.  
  
Ruby caught a whiff of burning plastic and began screaming.  
  
"My wig! My wig's on fi-yah!" Ruby hollered, her cigarette seesawing up and down on her lip. "My pride an' joy, it's my wig, and I jest made the last payment on it!"  
  
Ruby snatched the wig off her head and threw it on the sidewalk. She stomped it four or five times with her matted fuzzy bedroom slippers until the flames died. She cursed, picked up the wig, and marched into the Piggly Wiggl.  
  
"I demand to speak to the manager!" Ruby shouted at the cashier. [Author's note: Ruby's dialogue is intended to be read as subtitles, as her syllables are unintelligible due to her lack of teeth and poor state of mental health.]  
  
Mr. Kibble, the store's day manager, appeared from his useless office and stood patiently behind the check cashing counter while Ruby shouted and shook the half-burned, still-smoking wig at him.  
  
"I'm gonna sue! I kill you! I kill you for rerr-nin' this wig that's my pride and joy!" Ruby threatened.  
  
Mr. Kibble, a middle-aged bachelor who smelled of cheap aftershave, was new on the job. He suffered from a slight case of Negrophobia* [See author's note at end regarding this term, coined by African-American Darius James to denote a stereotypical fear of black people], so at the sight of the toothless and bald Ruby screaming nonsensically and waving her smoking blonde wig, he stepped on the Panic Button under the check cashing counter to summon the authorities and extricate himself from this most strange incidence of destroyed property. 


	3. chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
Dead Twig's number-one man, Sheriff Bungle, awoke abruptly to the clatter of his black rotary telephone ringing on the bedside table. "Gawd dammit," he grumbled as he rolled his rolly polly body over to grasp the receiver. "Bungle," he said into the crusty old phone.  
  
The cigarette-cracked voice of Sherrylynn Monroe, Dead Twig's police dispatcher, informed him of an emergency phoned in by his brother-in-law, Mr. Kibble, down at the Piggly Wiggly. Something about a lady's wig catching on fire and death threats.  
  
"Well now, that sounds perty serious," he drawled. "Death threats. Hm. Tell ya what, Miz Mon-roe, why don't you call them there big city cops who are in town for that kiddie porn bust. They'll know what to do." He hung up on Sherrylynn, rolled over on his back and quickly slipped back into Sunday morning dreams of super-sized Dairy Queen Butterfinger Blizzards.  
  
*********************  
  
Meanwhile, a girl named Fashion sashayed her way to the Piggly Wiggly in a tight polyester mini-skirt and halter top. She was 14, but looked much older if one noticed her prematurely seductive gait and the weight she carried in her eyes. She lived in a crumbling house about a mile outside of town, along with a revolving count of foster brothers and sisters and cars rusting on blocks in the front and back yard. But Fashion was determined to break away from all of that. Thoughts of a life of fame and fortune and cheering fans played in her head as she twisted and swayed along her route to the grocery store.  
  
**********************  
  
Elliot Stabler's cell phone chirped its digital song and snapped him out of his daydream of discovering what geometric perfection lay beneath the fabric of Olivia's cashmere shirt. "Ahem, Stabler. Yes, Mrs. Monroe, I understand. The Sheriff is tied up and he needs us to respond to the scene. We'll be right over." He snapped his cell phone shut and said, "Well, partner, are you ready for a little action in this sleepy town?" He inwardly cringed at the undertones of his statement, which belied his true intentions.  
  
"What an asshole," Olivia thought, but her placid and stern expression did not change. "Sure, what's up?"  
  
"Oh, some brouhaha just down the road at the Piggly Wiggly," he said with a wry smile. "This should be amusing."  
  
They left enough cash on the table to cover the breakfast bill plus a generous tip for their waitress, Betty, an old battle ax with too much lipstick and black hair dyed white in a stripe just down the middle of her head.  
  
"Let's roll," Stabler said, and cringed again. 


	4. chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
Benson and Stabler marched into the Piggly Wiggly with all the bravado of the city cops that they were. Guns were drawn and dark clothing swayed in unison as they commanded the fear of Sunday morning shoppers and dull- witted cashiers alike, eyes aimed down respective barrels in preparation for the felony of the century.  
  
Ruby Jackson was still shaking her burned wig and yelling hysterically at Mr. Kibble, who was rubbing his hands in a worrisome cycle that looked more diabolical than terrified.  
  
"Freeze and put your hands up!" Olivia shouted while Elliot slowly crouch- walked and trained his gun on the woman. Saucer eyed, both Ruby and Mr. Kibble threw their hands up the air in comical unison. Ruby's wig dropped to the floor and Elliot kicked the pitiful thing across the linoleum with so much force it skidded out onto the sidewalk.  
  
In all the commotion, no one noticed Fashion glide through the front door of the store and make her sultry way to the processed-meat aisle.  
  
Fashion sauntered along the brightly lit, refrigerated shelves of bacon, hot dogs, sausage links and luncheon meats, her high heels clicking and clacking on the off-white linoleum floor. She surveyed her choices, weighing which items could be secreted away under her clothing without drawing too much attention. The choices seemed endless: kielbasa, Italian sausage, bratwurst, olive loaf. She picked up a super-sized package of bologna and carefully tucked it into the back of her skirt, where it stuck out in a large circular shape beneath the tight fabric. Fashion turned on a high heel and nonchalantly strolled back toward the front of the store, where the confrontation was reaching advanced stages of misunderstanding.  
  
Olivia had Ruby face-down on the floor and was snapping handcuffs on her while Elliot patted down Mr. Kibble, whose lower lip trembled in fear. "He's clean," Elliot said, and gave him a shove. Mr. Kibble burst into tears and began sucking his thumb.  
  
Fashion eyed the scene of the handcuffed, bald-headed lady and the crying manager with a slight bit of interest, but not much, as she was more concerned with the fact that two cops were standing right there and she was shoplifting a package of bologna under her skirt. Well, if you wanted to be particular about it, she hadn't really shoplifted until she left the store. So she wasn't really doing anything wrong, was she?  
  
Fashion's eyes met Elliot's. The detective brain behind those blue eyes could spot a guilty conscience a mile away. They stared each other down like corny cowboys at the OK Corral as Fashion clickity-clacked out the door, turning her head to keep his gaze and her body to hide the bologna shoved down the back of her skirt.  
  
Just as she stepped out the door, she burst into a sprint, but only for a second, as one of her high heels caught on the remnants of the tortured wig and she lost her balance. Her arms pinwheeled and her mouth dropped open as she fell, ever so slowly, onto the concrete on her back side. When she landed, the package of bologna flew over the waistband of her skirt and shot across the empty space between Fashion and the back of Olivia's head, smacking it with an insulting, dull thud that spun her around in indignation, just in time to see Fashion's horrified face and the package of bologna land, finally, at Olivia's feet. Game Over.  
  
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," Fashion cried. "Our family is starving and we didn't have any money!" Forced tears gathered on the edges of her heavily made up eyes and streaked down her face.  
  
Elliot helped the girl up and snapped handcuffs onto her wrists. "Save the charm, sweetheart. You're going to have to come with us," he said gruffly. He'd heard it all before.  
  
The two detectives marched Ruby and Fashion out of the Piggly Wiggly and stuck them into their unmarked police car. They drove them a few scenic blocks to the historic Dead Twig Police Station and booked them for disturbing the peace and shoplifting. That's when Benson and Stabler's Sunday morning took a turn for the bizarre.  
  
********  
  
In the darkened interrogation room of Dead Twig's police headquarters, Fashion sat on a hard, grey metal chair, chomping on a stale piece of strawberry Bubbalicious. She hid her gnawing fear with a glazed expression of boredom. Although she was alone in the room, every now and then she took in a deep breath and exhaled a flippant "ho-hum."  
  
Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler stood on the other side of the one-way mirror, carefully studying their shoplifter under furrowed brows.  
  
Stabler said, "She's hiding something. My gut tells me that there's more to this shoplifting scene than mere processed beef and pork product stuffed into a tight polyester miniskirt riding ever so slowly up to the rounded, nubile .."  
  
"Elliot!" Olivia cut him off and stared at him in shock.  
  
"Uh, sorry, I don't know what came over me there for a second." He needed to get laid was the problem. All morning long, he'd had tits and ass on the brain, and it just wasn't going to stop until he had full carnal knowledge of Olivia Benson on the lumpy, creaky bed of his mildew-smelling motel room, with the cheap burnt-orange Formica headboard banging against the wall so hard that the clown paintings above the bed came crashing down upon them in a climax of chaotic and insane sex. And guess what, folks. That was not going to happen.  
  
"Look at the way she's ho-humming in there," Elliot continued, more than slightly horrified by the little reverie that took his focus far enough away for him to blurt out something that made him sound like a pervert.  
  
Always one to leave an awkward moment alone, Olivia sighed and stuck a hand into the back pocket of her tight, brown hip hugger stretch jeans and stuck a hip forward. "I think you're right. I'll take a crack at her first. Why don't you talk to Ruby? Maybe she's involved in all this too." 


End file.
